Top Swedish Bank Invests in Danish Blockchain Startup Coinify

Leading Nordic financial services group has shown interest and invested in Danish blockchain payment service provider Coinify

551Total views

140Total shares

Swedish banking giant SEB has joined a $4 million Series A funding round for Danish blockchain payment service provider (bPSP) Coinify.

SEB is a leading Nordic financial services group with operations in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Germany. It offers financial advice and a wide range of other financial services.

Its venture capital arm was joined in the round by Seed Capital Denmark, the largest venture capital fund in Denmark for the pre-seed and seed segment with $320 million under management.

Perfect fit for bank’s portfolio

Head of SEB Venture Capital, David Sonnek, says they really look forward to contributing to Coinify’s future development. He believes that it is a unique platform for blockchain payments that fits perfectly in the bank’s portfolio of FinTech investments.

According to the Co-Founder and CEO of Coinify, Mark Højgaard, the investment will be used to sustain the bPSP’s leading position in Europe and to expand its blockchain payment and trade products into Asia.

iPayDNA partnership and Asian market

Coinify had earlier partnered with Hong Kong-based payment service provider, iPayDNA International Ltd. to bring advanced blockchain payments to several merchants residing in the Asia Pacific region in March.

The partnership enables iPayDNA’s merchants to accept 17 blockchain currencies including Bitcoin from any country in a secure environment and receive payouts in local currency to their bank accounts within a few days.

This probably explains the need for Coinify, which claims to be the largest facilitator of blockchain payments in Europe for more than 20 PSPs and reaching over 100,000 online businesses, to make a further inroad into the Asian market.

Asia-Pacific is home to more than 60% of the world population and accounts for nearly three-quarter of global payment transactions. It also has the highest share of e-commerce in GDP.

Coinify recently secured the backing of local payments company Nets, with the pair building a development lab that will work on developing distributed ledger-based products and services.